For many American families, Ellis Island looms far larger in the foundation of their America than does Plymouth Rock. For historian Vincent Cannato, that gateway (which admitted 12 million new citizens between 1892 and 1924) is the embodiment of the deep divide between our nation's right to limit who can be an American and our belief that our founding principles of equality are universal and inalienable. In a vivid history full of the voices of immigrants, officials, interpreters, and social reformers, Cannato charts the island's progress from a place to hang pirates to its iconic role at the center of the immigration debate, as well as its later use as a detention center for wartime aliens and finally a museum of American history.